At least one million women and girls lose access to critical support as aid cuts dismantle women’s organizations working in humanitarian crises
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A new UN Women report finds that 84 per cent of women’s organizations report that demand for their services has increased since January 2025, while nearly nine in 10 can no longer meet current levels of need – the result of the steepest annual decline in official development assistance on record.
New York/Geneva, 10 July 2026 – As armed conflicts reach highest levels in 80 years, organizations providing life-saving services to women and girls are running out of money. Beyond the Breaking Point, a new UN Women report published today on the impact of aid cuts, finds that at least one million women and girls have lost access to critical support since January 2025. The report is based on responses from 855 women-led and women’s rights organizations across 52 crisis-and conflict-affected countries.
“The women’s organizations at risk of being shut down are on the frontlines of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. In countries including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Haiti, they operate where international actors cannot and stay long after global attention has moved on. Every dollar withdrawn from women’s organizations is a dollar withdrawn from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced from school, and communities struggling to survive”, said Sofia Calltorp, UN Women Chief of Humanitarian Action.
The collapse of women’s organizations is happening as needs reach historic levels. Some 120 million women and girls require humanitarian assistance and protection worldwide [1] and 84 per cent of women’s organizations surveyed report that demand for their services has increased since January 2025. Nearly nine in 10 say they can no longer meet current levels of need. Two in five organizations surveyed expect to shut down, temporarily or permanently, within the next year.
To keep life-saving services afloat, women leading or working in the organizations surveyed are paying with their own labour, income, and wellbeing. Many are crisis-affected themselves. Sixty-five per cent of women-led organizations report staff working without pay to keep services running. As organizations slip into survival mode, 48 per cent – nearly half – report rising burnout among their staff, while 88 per cent say the mental health of the women and girls they serve is deteriorating.
The consequences of the funding cuts are already visible. Half of women’s organizations have introduced waiting lists or are turning away women and girls in need. Ninety-two per cent of organizations report increasing levels of poverty among the women they serve, while 82 per cent report seeing more girls dropping out of school.
Conflict-related sexual violence doubled in 2025, just as the systems designed to protect survivors are collapsing. Eighty-six per cent of women’s organizations report an increase in gender-based violence in the communities they serve. Sixty-two per cent of organizations report that safe spaces are no longer available or have been significantly reduced.
Behind these numbers are devastating consequences. A woman seeking refuge from violence might show up at the door of a shelter that has shut down; a pregnant woman may have to walk for hours to reach a health clinic; or a mother may be denied food for her children. The women and girls left behind first are those with the fewest alternatives: women and girls in remote, conflict-affected and hard-to-reach communities. Nearly two-thirds, or 63 per cent, of organizations have already cut services in those areas.
The report warns that the consequences extend far beyond humanitarian response. The dismantling of women’s organizations is not happening in a vacuum but against a global backlash on the rights of women and girls. One in five organizations has already suspended work advancing women’s leadership and gender equality. More than half are already witnessing declining participation of women in community leadership and local decision-making.
UN Women is calling for sustained investment in women’s organizations as indispensable first responders, defenders of women’s rights, and the foundation of peace and recovery. “Without immediate action, the organizations that have kept women and girls alive through the world’s worst crises risk becoming another casualty of war”, concluded Calltorp.
UN Women works with and invests in women-led organizations as essential partners in humanitarian action – providing funding, technical support, and advocacy to strengthen their leadership, expand access to life-saving services, and advance inclusive, locally led humanitarian responses that meet the needs of women and girls.
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